Translation: NPCSC’s New Public Health Legislative Plan in Response to COVID-19

Editor’s Note (Oct. 2, 2020): This page is not being updated. For the latest status of each project in this legislative plan, please see the Legislation page or the projects’ individual bill pages.

On Wednesday, April 29, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released a special legislative plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is devoted to improving China’s public health legislation. According to an NPCSC spokesperson, the pandemic has exposed the “gaps” in and the “weaknesses” of the current legal scheme. Because to fix those problems many laws need to be enacted or updated, the authorities thought it appropriate to formulate a legislative plan to proceed in a coordinated manner. The spokesperson also said that the legislature would approach different laws in different ways: some would need complete overhauls, while some (like newer ones) would need only “targeted” changes. Finally, as expected, the NPCSC will focus on public health legislation in the near future, and other legislative projects would be deprioritized as a result.

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Translation: 13th NPC Standing Committee Five-Year Legislative Plan

On Friday, the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) held a Legislative Work Conference and released its five-year legislative plan, which we translated in full below. We will start first with a brief introduction to the NPCSC’s five-year legislative plans in general and an overview of the newest plan.

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Scholarship Highlight: Haste and Delay in the Chinese Legislative System

Professor Rory Truex of Princeton University has kindly permitted me to publish the abstract of his recent article, Authoritarian Gridlock? Understanding Delay in the Chinese Legislative System, as the second part of this Blog’s Scholarship Highlight series, which surveys academic scholarship relating to the NPC. This article will appear in a future print issue of the Comparative Legal Studies and is now available online at this link (subscription required). [Disclosure: I provided research assistance to Rory on this article.]

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NPC Calendar: May 2018

The Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law takes effect on May 1.

We expect the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) to release the draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law for public comments later this week.

The NPCSC has released its 2018 legislative and oversight plans. We have partially translated and analyzed the legislative plan here.

The NPCSC’s next regularly scheduled session will take place in late June.


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NPC Standing Committee Releases 2018 Legislative Plan

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) on Friday released its annual legislative plan for 2018. As usual, the plan is divided into two sections—the first listing specific legislative projects slated for discussion at the NPCSC’s remaining five sessions in 2018, and second setting forth general guiding principles for its legislative work this year. We will discuss only the first part in this post.

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NPCSC to Prepare for Upcoming NPC Session & Revise Oath-taking Provisions

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene its 33rd—and also the last—session from February 23 to 24, the Council of Chairmen decided on Saturday. Most items on the agenda concern the upcoming 1st Session of the 13th NPC starting on March 5—for example, a list of people invited to observe this NPC session. The 33rd session will also certify results of the elections of delegates to the 13th NPC. The full list of delegates, expected to include around 2,970 names (along with their genders and ethnicities), will be released on February 24. But the delegates’ other information, including political affiliation and educational background, most likely won’t be released until after this year’s NPC session.

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29th Session Watch Pt. 1: NPCSC to Consider Revisions of Laws Organizing China’s Judicial System

The Council of Chairmen met on August 18 and decided that the 29th—and fourth last—session of the 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will take place from August 28 to September 1. The agenda proposed by the Council of Chairmen is explained below.

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NPC Standing Committee Schedules Major Legislation for 2017

The 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) today finally released its much-anticipated legislative and supervisory plans for 2017. Here we will focus on the legislative plan, leaving the supervisory plan for another blog post. According to the 2017 legislative plan, a total of 23 legislative projects are tentatively scheduled (as the plan is subject to change) for the remaining four NPCSC sessions this year, with dozens more listed as preparatory projects. Among them, there is certainly no lack of blockbuster legislation, whether relating to China’s judicial reform, anti-corruption drive, environmental protection, or economic and social development in general.

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State Council Releases Legislative Plan for 2017

The State Council on Monday released its legislative plan for 2017 (2017 Plan). Because of this Blog’s focus, this post will only take a look at those projects in the 2017 Plan that will require the approval of the National People’s Congress (NPC) or its Standing Committee (NPCSC)—that is, proposed new laws or revisions of existing laws. For other projects (which concern administrative regulations), please refer to the linked plan itself.

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Farewell, 2016… Hello, 2017!

On this last day of the eventful 2016—which brought us a Trump Presidency, Brexit, not the most celebrity deaths in a year (per CNN), and of concern to this Blog, a series of significant yet oftentimes controversial actions by the NPCSC—I took some time to review the NPC and this Blog’s 2016 and to preview their 2017 as well.

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